Last weekend, I volunteered at Gannon’s graduation ceremonies. It was good to meet other people on campus, not to mention experience the excitement in the air of hundreds of grads finishing one adventure and starting a new one. It was a bit odd with all the COVID restrictions, but it was a win that we could do it at all, and it went off smoothly.
During the third ceremony, I was in the back and saw a girl four rows up struggling with her hood. At Gannon, all the grad, including the undergraduates have hoods that go down their backs. There is a hook in the front and another one in the back to keep the two sides together. It was one thing we were doing all day: arranging hoods and doing up the little hooks.
This girl was trying to straighten out her own by twisting her hand behind her back. She kept at it to the point I felt bad. I would have gone up to help her but I didn’t know if she’d want a strange guy to suddenly come up behind her. I thought of asking one of the female volunteers nearby to help her but they were all engaged.
After a few minutes she got it all straightened out and even managed to hook the two pieces together, sight unseen. Then I noticed how she had decorated the top of her mortarboard: Nevertheless, She Persisted.
Yep, she’ll do okay, I thought. She’s not one to give up.
The Green-Walled Tower 